1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and a network control device for handling services based on location information.
2. Description of the Related Art
This invention is related to handling services based on location information. This issue is in particular important in case of emergency sessions.
3GPP is standardising emergency sessions in IMS (Internet Protocol (IP) Multimedia Subsystem), and IMS shall support several types of access networks like WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) and fixed broadband in addition to the cellular network access. IMS shall support emergency sessions to be established irrespective of which access network is used. Location information is needed for the terminal in order to enable IMS to route the emergency session to the correct emergency centre.
The general approach in 3GPP is that the terminal shall include its own location information in the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) Invite method when it initiates an emergency session in IMS. This location information consists of the cell identifier in cellular networks, but in WLAN and fixed broadband access, there is not yet any established solution, as to which type of location information should be used by the terminal.
The problem is similar in the cellular networks, but there the MSC uses the cell identity to route the emergency call to the correct emergency centre. In the fixed network the routing of emergency calls is probably based on databases in the fixed network switch, which is using the phone number and/or some other phone line identity. Cisco describes a solution where the WLAN network determines the location of the terminal using the MAC address of the WLAN TERMINAL to find out which switch port the corresponding AP is connected to and thereby the location of the AP.
This problem does not only occur in connection with WLAN, as described above, but also in other cases in which access to a general network is provided via a sub-network.